


Resolution in Whistles and Wine

by JaneTurenne



Category: Gallifrey (Big Finish Audio)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-11
Updated: 2011-11-11
Packaged: 2017-10-25 22:35:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/275585
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JaneTurenne/pseuds/JaneTurenne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some months after her arrival in her new home, Romana's life has finally begun to move on.  That may not be <i>such</i> a bad thing after all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Resolution in Whistles and Wine

Romana thinks it’s true _enough_ , broadly speaking, for her to class the entire event, from start to finish, as one extended accident. Or at very least, that’s a sufficiently plausible way of phrasing it to avoid examining her own role in events in any more depth than strictly necessary.

It’s not as though the _idea_ of finding herself in this peculiar situation is in some way foreign to her. She may not have expected that anything would ever come of it, but she did admit the attraction years ago, to herself at least. No two people fight as much as she and Narvin fight unless they want either to kill each other or sleep with each other, and more often than not it’s really something of both--certainly so in this case. Officious little busybody bureaucrat he may be, but Narvin is intelligent even by Romana’s exacting standards, and he’s not _entirely_ incompetent, and his sense of humor is very like her own. Add to that the fact that his moral compass is shockingly well-developed for a man in his position, much more so than she had initially suspected, and the additional point that his loyalty to herself in recent years has proven unshakable. By that accounting he comes out looking practically eligible, or anyway as near to it as anyone so patently irritating could possibly be.

Not that any of that is really the crux of the matter, of course. The most important argument in Narvin’s favor is the simple fact that he’s already a part of Romana’s world. Near enough, as it were, for an accident of this variety to occur in the first place. So few people even register as people for Romana at all, not really, but through the power of annoyance and persistence and plain dumb circumstance, Narvin has become one of those few. And now that Brax and Leela and K-9 are all gone--and Romana tries very hard not to think about that--Narvin is not simply the only person she comes close to trusting, he’s the only person she even knows.

Which ought not to suggest, Romana hastens to point out, that she’s been _pursuing_ her Chancellor in some way. If she and Narvin have been spending all their free time together recently, well, who else does either of them have? There certainly haven’t been any grand, romantic goings-on going on. The first time she summoned Narvin to her rooms of an evening, it was honestly for no other reason than to provide just enough distraction to stop herself falling asleep over her paperwork. And if those evening report-reading sessions have grown over time to be a regular habit, that means nothing in and of itself, and if some of those nights they’ve paused to take a meal together, it isn’t as though they don’t both need to eat. Possibly the night when discussion over dinner developed into an attempt to instruct him in the finer points of human musical history--she had quite missed her tutoring sessions with K-9--wasn’t entirely work-related, but establishing that Narvin was an artistic cretin with the deplorable taste to prefer Bach to Mozart (and of course he _would_ , all strict order and regimented chords) certainly couldn’t be called a positive development in an emotional sense. Even if she had gone to bed smiling that night for the first time in months.

At any rate, there is no reason whatever why last night should have marked a turning point. She certainly hadn’t been _planning_ anything of the kind. She does suppose that six months ago, she and Narvin probably wouldn’t have been sitting _quite_ so close to each other on the sofa while reading their respective reports, and all right, yes, perhaps it had marked a relaxation of relations that they found themselves sharing a bottle of wine. But that doesn’t mean she’d _meant_ to fall asleep on his shoulder. She leads a very busy, stressful life, and these sorts of things _will_ occur from time to time.

And the rest of it... yes, the rest of it can safely, she thinks, be blamed entirely on Narvin. He’d been the one who shuffled them about on the sofa, in what she assumes was an attempt to settle her comfortably in and make his escape, leaving her to sleep. Which meant that they’d been nearly horizontal when the glass he’d been careless enough to leave in her sleeping hand tipped, drenching his robes before dropping to the floor and shattering with a crash that woke her instantly. And then it had all been a mess of him apologizing for waking her, and her apologizing for the stains, and both of them blotting frantically at his robes, and suddenly they were looking straight at each other, and both realizing in the same instant that she was lying more or less on top of him, and that their mouths were no more than a finger’s length apart.

If she’s being honest--brutally, strictly honest with herself--there may have been a moment just then when she could have prevented the whole thing. Only then he was smiling, a half-smile in the corner of his mouth that would have been arrogant except for the strange hint of warmth in his eyes, and saying, “Has this become a contest to see which of us backs down first?”

And of course she couldn’t simply cede him the upper hand, and so she’d said, “Neither of us is notable for avoiding each other’s challenges.” And his eyes had been absolutely glowing, and somehow his hand was gripping the collar of her robes and tugging, pulling her slowly in. Which wasn’t entirely bad, when it came down to it, except that she couldn’t possibly permit him to believe that the whole thing was _his_ idea. And as there hadn’t been time to think out a proper plan, the only thing for it had been to close the gap herself, and then she’d been kissing him, more softly than she’d really planned, and his hand found its way into her hair.

But that was all eight hours ago, and this is now. This is Romana waking up naked in her own bed beside an equally unclad but somewhat less conscious Narvin, and the truth of the matter is that the key question is not so much ‘where can Romana pin the blame’ as it is ‘what happens _now_?’

Romana bites her lip hard, and tries to think. She’s too close to this whole problem. She needs someone to talk to, but the only other likely candidate is equally emotionally compromised, and still less likely to consider the whole thing objectively from Romana’s point of view. She can’t very well talk to Narvin, but she can’t very well talk to any other citizen of this Gallifrey either--quite apart from not knowing any of them, she doesn’t fancy shattering her image as the untouchable Supreme Leader on a planet where assassination is such a beloved institution. Which leaves only one option, really.

This conversation will no doubt cost Romana some groveling, but her pride isn’t exactly at its highest ebb to begin with just now.

Romana has no doubt that the standard-issue Gallifreyan communicator that Leela carried while they were traveling together is long since gone. Romana knows her best friend and her impulsive fits of anger; she can just see Leela casting the communicator away, hear it shatter against a wall in Leela’s flight from the Presidential Palace. Romana had hoped that Leela’s departure was in itself a manifestation of that same impulsiveness, and that she would soon return, but months of waiting have proved that hope a vain one. No matter how upset Leela would be about it, Romana would have sent the Chancellery Guard after her long ago, except that there still remains one avenue of communication open between them.

Romana steps out of bed, pulls on a dressing gown from a hook on the wall, and lifts a delicate silver chain from its place on her bedside table. She carries it with her as she flees the bedroom, sparing one last glance for Narvin asleep on her pillows before retreating to the safety of the sitting room. Skirting the bits of broken wineglass that still lie on the carpet, she settles herself onto the sofa, and studies the small silver cylinder hanging from the chain in her hand.

There is something a bit poetic, Romana supposes, about the Time Lord who formed her first link to Leela becoming the last bond between them to break. Although, in fairness, this is more about K-9 than the Doctor, which is perhaps better. Leaving the man but taking the dog has always struck Romana as one of her sounder life decisions.

No matter how useless it may be with K-9 stranded a universe away, Romana is so used to wearing his whistle around her neck that she hasn’t even considered giving it up. She suspects it’s just the same for Leela, even though the scraps of what was once her K-9 lie carefully buried in a shallow grave on a Gallifrey very different from this one. Romana also suspects that Leela has no idea how much more than just a whistle this device really is.

Romana presses her thumb against the metal, and feels it hum just slightly as it accepts her bioprint. After that it’s only a matter of will, her thoughts instantly translated to action. If only the rest of life could be so simple.

Romana times the whole thing out in her head. Now Leela’s own dogwhistle will be vibrating against her skin, as she startles and stares--now she’ll be pulling it from around her neck and holding it in her hand--now it will be accepting her genetic signature--and now...

“Hello Leela,” says Romana, as the holographic image of her friend’s face springs to life in front of her.

“Romana?” asks Leela. “How is it that I can see you? And what is wrong? And why... Romana, do you even know that it is only just dawn?”

Romana blinks. “No,” she says, “I think I may have missed that detail. Did I wake you?”

“ _Yes_.”

“I’m sorry,” she says, earnestly. “I didn’t mean to.”

“You never do,” Leela says. “I take it this whistle is much more than just a whistle. Has it always been so? Or did you steal my last bit of K-9 and replace it with a thing to call _me_? Perhaps you thought I would follow as thoughtlessly as a metal dog.”

“I’ve stolen nothing from you,” says Romana, fighting not to respond to the anger in Leela’s voice. “And if I hadn’t known before that following me was a difficult choice for you, I’ve certainly learnt it recently.”

Leela eyes her suspiciously for a moment, and then she sighs. The hologram wavers and wobbles, then rights itself. Romana is puzzled for a moment, and concludes that Leela must have been standing, and now be settling in for a conversation. A good sign, all things considered. “You have had a way to find me all these months, then,” says Leela, “and yet you have not. For that much, I should thank you.”

“Where you go and when is your own choice to make. You already knew that you would be welcomed home with open arms if that was your decision. It wasn’t my place to badger you, no matter how much I might miss you.”

Leela’s face softens a hint. “But you are calling me now. What has changed?”

“I don’t know what to do,” Romana admits. “Even if you don’t want to come back... If you needed my help, Leela, you know that no matter what, no matter when, I would give it if you asked. And I hoped you might... might still care enough at least to offer me the benefit of your advice.”

“You want _me_ to tell _you_ what to do?”

“I slept with Narvin last night,” Romana blurts, without quite meaning to, her face contorting with a grimace of pure disbelief. “I don’t know how it happened, it just... One minute everything was fine, and then he was _taunting_ me and I couldn’t just _not_ kiss him, and then... I didn’t _mean_ to, it just...just _happened_ and...”

Leela is laughing, one hand pressed over her mouth as tears well into her eyes. “ _This_ is why you need my help?” she gasps.

“It isn’t funny!” says Romana, louder and more frantic and at a far higher pitch than she can possibly justify. “He’s _asleep_ in my _bed_ , Leela, and he hasn’t got any _clothes_ on, and what’s worse is that he’s going to _wake up_ and...”

Leela nearly drops the whistle in her hand, she’s laughing so hard. “Oh do stop,” says Romana, and suddenly she finds that she’s laughing, too, slightly hysterically but in honest recognition of the absurdity of this whole situation. “Please, Leela,” she says, when she can breathe properly again, “I really don’t know what I’m going to do.”

“I do not see why you think there should be a problem.”

“I’m not even sure whether I _like_ him or not.”

“You do,” says Leela, still smiling.

“Do I?” asks Romana. “Well, I’m glad one of us knows.”

“Was it not good? Is that what is troubling you?”

“No.” Romana bites her lip, still swollen, and tastes the echoes of a thousand untold promises offered through the imprecise medium of last night’s kisses. “No, it was...” She rubs at the back of her neck, feels the translation of once-abstract devotion into warm and living touch, embedded now as memory in her skin. “Good,” she admits, blushing slightly, and thinks, _better than anything in such a long, long time_.

“Then what is wrong?”

Romana comes back sharply to herself. “He’s my Chancellor, and my friend,” she says, and struggles to put what she feels into words. “I see him every day of my life. This can’t just be nothing. It has to...to _mean_ something.”

“And is that so bad?”

“Yes!”

“Romana,” says Leela, “you spent last night with a man who you care for, who cares for you in return. He is a good man, one who would die for you if you asked it of him, and you enjoyed the way he made you feel. You are so used to bad things happening that you cannot see a good one when it is before your nose. Why can you not let yourself be happy? This is a _good thing_.”

Romana shakes her head emphatically. She has to make Leela understand. “No,” she says. “No, that isn’t right.”

“But _why_?”

“Because... I’ll _break_ him!” There it is. That’s the thought she couldn’t quite reach before. “I’ll hurt him, Leela. I don’t want to, but I’m so very bad at this. I don’t know how to have...to have _anything_. I’m no good at relationships, not even innocent ones. I can’t even manage a healthy friendship. You should know that better than anyone.”

Leela is capable of conveying more sympathy in a single glance than Romana can recall experiencing in her entire life before they met. “Romana,” she says, softly, “you are too hard with yourself. You are not a bad friend.”

Romana swallows. “Then why aren’t you here?”

They’re both still for a moment, and then Leela purses her lips. “I needed time,” she says. “I am not like you, Romana. I cannot hold so many things in my mind at once, and my heart had grown so tired. I never had time even to properly mourn Andred after his death, and then there was my K-9, and yours, and Brax, and the Gallifrey we both loved, and everything of the lives that we used to live, all gone. You needed to push ahead, so that you could stop yourself from thinking of all those things, because that is who you are. I needed just as much to stop and think about them, because that is who I am. Our two needs could not help but push us apart. That was not your fault, nor was it mine. Sometimes, we work very well together because we are so different, and sometimes we do not, and that is all. But it does not mean that either of us cares any less.”

Romana breathes deep, and nods. She’s missed Leela’s wisdom, so much more than she knew. “And have you had the time that you need?” she asks.

“Not yet.” Romana feels herself slump. “But nearly,” Leela goes on. “If I promise you that I will come back to the Citadel to see you when I am ready, will you feel better?”

“Yes,” Romana admits, and smiles softly. “It means more than I can say.”

“Good.” Leela grins. “Now, you are going to stop wasting your morning talking to me, go wake Narvin up with a kiss, and after that... I am sure you are smart enough to figure out the rest for yourself.”

“I’m afraid it’s late for that,” says Narvin’s voice, from over Romana’s shoulder, and she whirls. He’s eschewed the sheet-toga approach, but she’s vaguely pleased to see that he’s comfortable enough not to have felt the need to get fully dressed, either. He’s leaning against her doorframe in his boxers and, inexplicably, his socks. She doesn’t fail to recognize the absurdity, and also doesn’t fail to find it oddly endearing, and for the first time it occurs to her that possibly this really _isn’t_ such a bad idea.

“How long have you been there?” she asks.

“I was awake before you even left the room.”

“And so you thought you’d do a bit of surveillance. Typical,” she says, wrinkling her nose. “You are CIA all the way through.”

“Surely you’d noticed that before.”

“You’re just self-centered enough to assume I’ve ever paid you that much thought.”

“I’m just generous enough to assume you’re not completely unobservant.”

“Mmmm,” she says, skeptically.

“Narvin?” calls Leela. “I can hear you, but I cannot see you.”

Narvin crosses to the sofa, and slides beside Romana. He’s warm and solid and smells like sex, and his thigh is brushing against Romana’s through her dressing gown. He wraps his hand around hers where it holds her whistle, so that two of his fingertips touch the metal. His thumb caresses over Romana’s fingers, briefly enough that she might call it an accident, except that she’s abused that word quite enough today, and that no unintentional motion could possibly make her insides go so funny. “Is that better, Leela?” he asks.

“Yes,” says Leela, and smiles. “Hello, Narvin.”

“Hello, Savage.”

“You have been doing well for yourself, _Chancellor_ ,” Leela teases.

Narvin glances sideways at Romana, though without meeting her eyes. “I like to think so.”

“Take good care of her,” says Leela. “Or I will cut off all your toes.”

“I intend to.”

“Good.”

“I suppose I’d only offend you if I told you to look after yourself?”

“I do not need you to tell me what is obvious.”

“Good,” he echoes. “And see that you do come back soon.”

“Why Narvin,” says Leela, “I could almost think you cared.”

“I do,” he says. “You’ve no idea how useful I find your presence. Can you even imagine how much of a job it is, minding _her_ all by myself?”

“Do you take some sort of satisfaction in talking about me like a child while I’m right here?” asks Romana, sourly.

“Yes,” say Leela and Narvin, in unison.

“I,” says Romana, pointedly, “am going to have a shower. Narvin, you may join me, or you can sit around gossiping about me. I really couldn’t care which.” She turns her sideways smirk into a smile as she looks back to Leela. “Thank you for everything, Leela. And I hope you find...well, everything you’re looking for.”

“As do I,” says Leela. “Goodbye, Romana. Goodbye, Narvin.”

“Who said I’m going anywhere?” says Narvin. “I thought we were supposed to be...”

Leela, laughing, lets the whistle drop from her hand, and the connection cuts off.

Narvin unwraps his hand from around Romana’s so she can set her whistle down on the coffeetable. She tries not to feel bereft as she turns to face him.

“I should be angry with you,” she says. “Spying on my personal conversations is not a way to make the very best morning-after impression, you know.”

“If I had been spying, I wouldn’t have told you I was there,” he points out, but there’s an apologetic twinge in the corner of his mouth. “I didn’t mean to pry,” he says. “I came looking for you, but by the time I got this far, you were already talking with Leela. I didn’t want to interrupt.”

Narvin never bothers to fake sincerity. She believes him, and it’s good enough. “Fine.”

There is a moment of silence. “I’m not quite as breakable as you seem to think,” Narvin says.

Romana flushes unhappily. She was hoping against hope that he’d managed to miss that particular bit of the conversation. “Narvin...”

He slips an arm around her waist, tugs her closer. Her hands instinctively come to rest on his shoulders. “I won’t ask for anything you’re not ready to give,” he says. “You should understand...” Narvin swallows. “Leela was right about me.” He looks straight into Romana’s eyes. “I would die for you. I’m... committed. Fully. To you.”

What he means is ‘I love you,’ and she’s not sure whether to be more terrified that he thinks it, or relieved that he hasn’t said it. Before she can decide, he’s gone on. “But I won’t pressure you,” he says. “If this never happens again, I can live with that--I won’t make things awkward. If you want something purely physical, I’m happy to oblige. And if you’d like something more... involved, that’s fine too. I won’t push. I just need you to tell me what you want, Romana.”

Romana bites her lip. “Leela also said that you were a good man,” she says. “Was she right about that, too?”

“Not a chance,” he says, immediately. “That’s just her naive romanticism talking.”

“Good,” says Romana, smiling, and leaning forward as she does. “I wouldn’t know what to do with you, otherwise.”

She kisses him once, twice, three times, brief, exploratory kisses with a hint of sliding tongues. “Let’s start with that shower,” she says, “and see where we end up from there.”

“Sounds perfect,” he says, smiling.

“No,” she says. “Nothing about either of us will ever be perfect. You’re wearing _socks_ , for Rassilon’s sake.”

“My feet were cold,” he protests. “And don’t pretend you don’t like it. I saw the way you were looking.”

She can’t help it. She smiles all over her face, and laughs through her nose, and kisses him with all her heart. “All right,” she concedes, mumbling into his mouth. “Possibly not just an accident.”

“Sorry?” he asks, his fingers toying with the knot of her sash.

“I said that this was all entirely my idea,” she says, standing and pulling him off the sofa with her, “and quite possibly one of my better ones.”

“Now I _know_ I can’t have heard you correctly.” He catches her around the waist as they’re heading for her bathroom, and kisses the crook of her neck. “I distinctly remember playing a vital role myself.”

“Lies,” she breathes. “Self-serving and scurrilous falsehoods.” She stands still for a long moment as his lips inch higher, but dances away and pulls him with her before his kisses can edge up as far as her ear.

“Tell you what,” he says. He catches her against the nearest wall, pins her with his body. “I’ll concede that your brilliance was entirely responsible for this development in our love lives, if you’ll admit that right this moment, you’re happy.” She raises her eyebrows, and he adds, “I don’t want Leela following through on that threat. I’d rather keep my toes.”

She thinks of Narvin, of how strange this morning _hasn’t_ felt, of the look in his eyes the first time she kissed him. She thinks of this world she’s living in, the one that’s still so new, but becoming more like home every day. She thinks of Leela’s laughter, and her promise to come home. She thinks of how many hard times she’s seen, of how much she’s lost, of how much she’s lived through. And she thinks of the future she can see stretching out ahead of her, and how much brighter it looks this morning than it did yesterday.

Romana looks up at Narvin, and smiles.


End file.
